News

Ryan Rayno, DEVCOM Public Affairs

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. – Erica Bertoli, the workforce and community outreach lead for U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, or DEVCOM, Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Center, was announced as an ATHENA Leadership Award finalist for the Harford County, Maryland, region Jan. 8, 2024.

The ATHENA Leadership Award is presented to an individual who demonstrates the highest level of professional excellence, improves the quality of life for others in the community and actively assists others in realizing their full leadership potential.

Previous awardees include Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Billie Jean King and Condoleezza Rice.

“I legitimately can’t explain how much it means to me to have been nominated, let alone to be a finalist,” Bertoli said. “Everybody always makes the joke around the Academy Awards, ‘oh it’s great just to be nominated,’ but the nomination and what it means … I was floored and just so, so grateful.”

“I legitimately can’t explain how much it means to me to have been nominated, let alone to be a finalist,” Bertoli said. “Everybody always makes the joke around the Academy Awards, ‘oh it’s great just to be nominated,’ but the nomination and what it means … I was floored and just so, so grateful.”

Bertoli was nominated and later announced as a finalist for her work bringing STEM opportunities to students in the surrounding areas of Aberdeen Proving Ground.

“One of the programs that I first built after coming to C5ISR was Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Superstar, which is a program that sees every elementary public-school student in Harford and Cecil Counties on a five-year rotation get to become a STEM superstar,” she said. “So, there’s 50 schools in total, which gets us into about 10 a year, and we’re in each school for about a week.

“We talk about what an engineer is, and we use touch points that they would understand, like Tony Stark from The Avengers, or Shuri, the sister of Black Panther, things like that. Then we give the students a project to solve as a team, and it will usually be a creepy project like, meatballs from outer space are going to fall down on the playground and they have to figure out how to protect the playground.”

With the everchanging advances of the STEM fields, Bertoli and her team also tries to focus on aspects that will help students be successful in the workplace, such as self-confidence, leadership skills and teamwork skills.

“We ask our students to raise their hand if they think they’re smart, and while some raise their hand, the girls are more prone to not raise their hand,” she said. “Whether that’s because they’ve been taught culturally it’s arrogant, or because they don’t feel confident in themselves, I tell them that the secret is that every smart person believes in themselves.”

Aside from elementary school students, Bertoli and her team works with high school students through the Real-World Internships in Science and Engineering, or RISE, Program internship.

The internship is a two-week program for current high school students who will be 16 years old by the 1st of July of each year.

“In many marginalized communities and communities of color, especially in lower income communities, when a student turns 16 years old, there’s sometimes a drop off in enrichment summer activity because they can begin working at a job and earning money.

“The RISE Program imbeds kids in a lab with a team of engineers and they go through a four-part communication and leadership curriculum, and, just as importantly, they get paid.”

Acceptance into the RISE Program is completely merit based, with no personal identifiable information used during the review process.

“We redact applications completely so there are no names or addresses listed, the gender is not listed and things like that,” Bertoli said. “Application reviews take transcripts into account, but what is weighted the highest amount are the essays, because we want to know what kids think, and we want to know what their experiences are.

“Once students are selected, we see them just open up and start to trust each other, and most importantly, start to trust themselves. At the end of the day, though, I feel that if we have a teeny, tiny piece in making a connection that allows somebody else to make the world better, we’ve won.”

That dedication to the betterment of others is what led to her nomination for the ATHENA Leadership Award by her supervisor.

“One of Erica’s most remarkable attributes is her natural leadership ability,” Stephanie Batrony, the assistant chief of human resources for DEVCOM C5ISR, said. “She leads by example and consistently places the needs of our employees, her mentees, the organization, and the community above her own.”

“One of Erica’s most remarkable attributes is her natural leadership ability,” Stephanie Batrony, the assistant chief of human resources for DEVCOM C5ISR, said. “She leads by example and consistently places the needs of our employees, her mentees, the organization, and the community above her own.”

According to Batrony, since Bertoli joined the DEVCOM C5ISR team over a decade ago, she has made a positive impact not just with her students, but with her teammates as well.

“Erica is not only an outstanding employee, but also a dedicated mentor who takes great pride in nurturing the growth of our team members,” she said. “Her commitment to fostering talent is evident in both her formal mentoring interactions and the informal guidance she offers to colleagues daily. She goes above and beyond to support others in their professional development and has contributed to the overall success of our projects and initiatives.”

ATHENA Leadership Award winners will be announced March 1, 2023, in Edgewood, Maryland.

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The U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, known as DEVCOM, is home to thousands of Army scientists, engineers, technicians and analysts working around the globe to leverage cutting-edge technologies and empower the American warfighter with the data and abilities to see, sense, make decisions and act faster than our adversaries – today and in the future.

As part of Army Futures Command, DEVCOM takes calculated risks to find new technological solutions each day. Our experts drive innovation, improve existing technologies and engineer solutions to technical challenges. Our work goes beyond theory to simulation and prototyping. We take potential science and technology solutions from the lab “into the dirt” for experimentation alongside Army Soldiers. DEVCOM prides itself as a global ecosystem of innovators, from world-class universities and large defense contractors, to small, minority-owned businesses and international allies and partners.